Rain Storm -- an online journal of opinion and culture

There are some members of Congress who are personally so vile and whose politics are so repulsive, that they require our full attention. Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) is one such individual.

You see, the left-wing radicals and Democrats hope to drain my resources and bleed me dry with negative attacks in the primary.

Then comes the nastier storm on the horizon, already swelling, with liberal activists backing my general election challenger, Democrat Stan Matsunaka.

...

Right now, Stan Matsunaka is not only pushing individual donors to max out, but also all of the liberal special interest donors across the country.

Just one liberal website alone raised over $20,000 for Matsunaka in a matter of days! And there are literally dozens of liberal websites targeting me for defeat.

Most of these extremist donors will give again and again (many will even give the legal maximum of $2000 per person, per election). This will add hundreds of thousands of dollars to Matsunaka's already ballooning war chest.

...

The bank accounts of liberal special interests seem to have no limit . . . The liberal special interests and the other democrats are stopping at nothing to dfeat (sic) me. They are pulling out all the stops and calling in the reserves.

President Bush - Aug. 6, 2004: Now in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is -- we need to be very sensitive on that. (emphasis added)

Vice President Cheney - Aug. 12, 2004: America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. (emphasis added)

Although Muqtada and his men are now under siege, Waco-style, it is not for sure that the Marines can capture or kill him. I suspect Najaf is crisscrossed by underground tunnels, which is how Muqtada and others used to evade Saddam's secret police.

If he is trapped in the shrine, and the siege goes on very long, that in itself could inflame Shiite passions against the US. Remember that Waco was in the back of the mind of Timothy McVeigh, who later blew up a Federal building.

My guess is that if Muqtada is killed, and maybe also if he is captured and imprisoned, that will tip the Sadr movement into conducting a long-term low-intensity guerrilla war, similar to what Sunni radicals and Arab nationalists have done in the Sunni heartland for the past 16 months. The south had been much quieter than the Sunni Arab areas, but I suspect that calm can no longer be taken for granted. The question is what happens to the Iraqi government if it faces two major guerrilla insurgencies going on at the same time.

Every time I think the Bush administration can't get any worse, they get worse. Every. Single. Time.

I waited in line, picked up my Bush tickets and waited in line to enter the park to hear the president. When I got up to the front of the line, I was grabbed by security, pushed to the side (in front of my children and Republican friends) and my ticket was ripped. They said, "We don't like your pin, so get out of here."

I was wearing a small pin that said, "John Kerry 2004." The worst part is the security team did this in front of my children. I want my daughters to understand that in America we have the right to free speech. We have the First Amendment, but that was blatantly violated.

I wasn't making a scene. I didn't even say anything. My daughters don't understand why this happened. They thought in America people could express themselves without repression.

The following is a description of an incident that occurred today at the St. Louis Downtown Airport, a large GA facility. We are sharing this story with you as there are indications that it might be repeated throughout the country. We would like to thank Bob McDaniel, the Director at the St. Louis Downtown Airport, for sharing the details of the incident outlined below.

Earlier today two Middle Eastern men attempted to penetrate our security. They telephoned one of my helicopter FBOs and asked about a charter flight. After discussion of price and directions to the business, they arrived an hour later. When the office agent asked how they were going to pay for the flight they produced cash. When asked for ID, they produced driver's licenses from two different states and they were driving a car licensed in a third state.

Things didn't smell right so the mechanic took them into the hangar to see the aircraft while the office person called the FBI and local police. The helicopter they were going to fly was blocked in by other aircraft so the mechanic was able to stall them by having to slowly shuffle the blocking planes. Meanwhile the two men got their backpacks and odd-shaped luggage out of their car. Soon the local police arrived and they were hauled off to jail in handcuffs.

After a little time behind bars, the FBI verified that the two men were employed by NBC New York and were on assignment to get a story of how easy it is to charter a helicopter for a terrorist attack. The men had stayed in a local hotel and purchased box cutters, leather-man knives, and other potential weapons at the local Wal-Mart using a credit card. The box cutters had been hidden in the lining at the bottom of the back packs and the other weapons were hidden throughout their baggage. They had audio taped the telephone conversation with Arlene and were going to use it as part of a national news story about how easy it is to get information and directions to the location of the helicopter and then hijack it to commit a terrorist attack.

I doubt they will be back at our airport soon and this is a story that will never be seen since they were caught. A very "well-done" to my FBO and staff and the local FBI and police response forces. We have since learned that we were the first airport where this had been attempted and NBC planned to attempt similar penetration stories around the country.

Please help me spread the word to other airports.

Explosions and gunfire echoed across the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, as the U.S. military and Iraqi forces launched a full-scale assault to crush a weeklong uprising by militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Thousands of U.S. troops were taking part in the offensive, which began with the cordoning off of the revered Imam Ali shrine, its vast cemetery and Najaf's Old City.

"Major operations to destroy the militia have begun," said U.S. Marine Maj. David Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment.

The assault was expected to be led by Iraqi forces--many of whom have only minimal training--in an effort to ease anger from Iraq's Shiite majority if the offensive damages the shrine where many insurgents have taken refuge.

Mission not accomplished. Corner not turned. We're still caught up in the same old war, courtesy of Bush's lies.

Few people know that George W. Bush is the only President to ever authorize federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

...President Bill Clinton, after asking his national bioethics advisory commission for a report on human stem cells, issued an executive order clarifying an existing congressional ban on the use of federal funds to create or destroy human embryos.
His order did allow federal funding for research on human stem-cell lines, but not for creating them.

Most researchers were satisfied that sufficient private money could be raised to create new stem-cell lines; they could then use federal money to pursue their research.

But eight months after George W. Bush became president, he extended the funding ban to research on all human stem-cell lines, except those already in existence on August 9, 2001, the day he announced his policy.

A voter in Louisiana is filing a legal challenge to defective Congressman Rodney Alexander's ballot qualification, and seeks an injunction preventing the Secretary of State from issuing ballots printed with his name. The petition, filed by a voter and based on both Louisiana statute and prior precedent, rightly argues that Alexander's SECOND filing 20 minutes before the deadline is in effect a withdrawal of his candidacy under Louisiana law since candidates are prohibited from amending their ballot qualification in any way once it has been made. Others in Louisiana have been tossed for just this kind of behavior in the past.

Alexander was known as the stupidest Democrat in Louisiana, which would probably make him the smartest Republican in Washington.

The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.

[. . .]

Rooney, who is white, said in an e-mail response to an inquiry from The Washington Post: "I support [the] group because the genuine word from the black community should be heard, not white folks saying for them."

President Bush on Tuesday announced his choice to lead the CIA as U.S. Rep. Porter Goss, an eight-term Republican congressman who butted heads with former CIA Director George Tenet over the agency's intelligence gathering.

Venturing forcefully into one of the more contentious issues of the campaign, Laura Bush on Monday defended the limits her husband had imposed on embryonic stem cell research and criticized those who suggested that the research could lead quickly to cures for Alzheimer's and other diseases.

[. . .]

The remarks were a thinly veiled reference to comments by Ron Reagan, who suggested loosening restrictions on the research in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, just six weeks after the death of his father, former President Ronald Reagan, who had Alzheimer's.

[. . .]

Nancy Reagan, the former first lady, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have argued that less stringent limits on science could eventually lead to breakthroughs to help those who suffer from diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.

With polls showing wide support for stem cell research, Democrats consider the issue one that plays to their advantage, dividing Republicans. The Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, raised the issue in a radio address on Saturday, vowing to lift the restrictions on research if he became president and saying the government should not "sacrifice science for ideology."

On Monday, Mr. Kerry restated the point, speaking to reporters in Arizona.

"It is entirely within ethical bounds to do embryonic stem cell research without violating one's beliefs at all about what life is or where it is and what matters," he said. "I think you have to measure it also against the lives you save, against the diseases that you're curing. Life is important to us, and I think if we can cure Alzheimer's, if we can cure AIDS, if we can cure diabetes, if we can save millions of lives by doing research on something that may be destroyed anyway, that the balance is important."